114 



Ptenostrobus, Lesqx. 



Cone obloug or cylindrical, bearing small oval seeds, attached to oval-oblong wings or scales. 



This name is admitted for the description of a strobile, whose relation is 

 as yet uncertain, as may be seen from the description of the species. 



Ptenostrobus nebrascensis, sp. nov., PL xxiv, Fig. 1. 



The figure represents, as far as it is distinguishable, a cone two to three 

 centimeters wide, oblong, crushed, or, rather, cut in its length and by the 

 middle, exposing numerous small, oblong-oval seeds, convex or lenticular- 

 obtuse at one end, pointed downward, regularly striated lengthwise. These 

 seeds are apparently crushed, and their relative position is undiscernible, ex- 

 cept for a few which appear imbricated in an oblique row along the borders. 

 They are attached to salient wings, oblique to the axis of the cone, and joined 

 to the seeds, as marked in the enlarged figure. It is, however, possible 

 that the dark ring, marked as the base of the scale at its point of union 

 to the seeds, is only formed by a fragment of the coating of coaly matter 

 which envelops the seeds, as seen in the figure, which shows a seed with 

 part of the coating destroyed, and, therefore, that the scale is not super- 

 posed to the top of the seeds, but passes to the base behind it or invelops it, as 

 in some species of conifers. In this case, the cone would present an appear- 

 ance somewhat similar to that of Cunninghamites oxycedrus, as figured in Ett. 

 Cret. Flor. v. Nieders., (PI. i, Fig. 9,) supposing, however, that the scales of 

 this cone, which appear broken, should have been longer and oval-lanceolate. 

 In the Nebraska strobile, these scales are striate in the length as in those of 

 the cone of Niedershoena. I am not able to find any other point of compari- 

 son for this fossil. 



When I broke open the stone, the vegetable impressions were very dis- 

 tinct; the scales or wings, like the seeds, being sharply defined and painted 

 black upon the yellowish sandstone. By exposure to the atmosphere, the 

 coloring has become less distinct, and the specimen now presents the appear- 

 ance as seen in the figure. 



Habitat. — Warner's quarry, eight miles northeast of Winnebago Village, 

 bluffs of the Missouri River. 



Carpolithes(?), PI. xxvii, Fig. 5 ; PI. xxx, Fig. 11. 



This specimen (Fig. 5) may be referable to some fruit of unknown 



